More 30-Minute Reviews: Slay the Spire, Wildfrost, Balatro

-- Once again using a gimmick to force myself to write

Introduction: I saw an idea for wannabe bloggers like myself setting a timer and hitting publish on the post no matter the state of the writing once the time was up. The idea being to 1) discourage perfectionism and 2) encourage writing, even nonsense writing, because once the words start flowing creativity has the chance to flourish (or so I suppose). So the below review was written with a 30-minute timer as its overlord. Use this information as you wish as you pass judgement on my efforts.

Today let's talk about Deckbuilders on Switch.

A deckbuilder is a card game. In a deckbuilder you start with a standard hand of cards and play them to the table, cycling through your little deck, playing them to advance on a track (El Dorado) or battle enemies (StS) or dig through trash (Arctic Scavengres) in a Duhnald Johnson fever dream. As the game advances you will acquire more powerful cards, with the only problem being that the more cards you get, the less likely it is that you'll draw that one ikey card you need, given that your hand of cards is swelling like the Aunt from Harry Potter. Deckbuilders rock because this core concept - upgrading your hand, steadily building an engine, hoping that you'll draw your most useful cards at that serindipitous moment when their most usefullness will be maximized -- is absoultely addicting.

That's why there are approximatley **logs on to BGG, pulls out calculator, collapses, wakes up, guesses 2,000** two thousand deckbuilder board and digital games in existence.

Here's my review of Slay the Spire (StS). It is the very best of them.

If I were describing Austin Collie's 2008 season or Blake Lively's Gossip Girl performance I could showcase NASA-esque precision in explaining their respective greatness. But I'm not that good with board games. I don't know quite how to explain what makes StS so good. Maybe we start on the back end, with what the game is not good at. The art and theming of the characters and cards is not memorable in any way. The story is not engaging; you fight bad guy after bad guy and that's it. There was a music component but it certainly wasn't compelling enough to play it over a podcast or a basketball game or over Max's snoring when I was under a blanket in his room, hiding the Switch while I pretended to be sleeping by him. Heck, the controls on Switch even took some getting used to. More than once I accidentally ended my turn with cards I could've played.

But none of that matters at all? The core activity of building a deck, choosing which cards to play and when, debating between fattening your deck with power or trimming it down by scuttling lame cards, generating ridiculous card combinations to wreak maximum devastation on your opposing monsters is executed to perfection. All deckbuilders do this, StS just does it better than everyone else. It helps that there are 4 different main characters to play as, each with a style that is radically different than the other. Look, this game would have been the best deckbuilder with just one character. The fact that they were able to multiply the excellence of the first adventurer by four is kind of mind boggling. How often in video games do publishers boast that you can play as Batman, Robin, and Joker, and yet all three feature the same punch animations, the same speed and jumping ability, the same combos, the only variation coming in the design of the character? StS does not do that.

Does it help that StS is hard as the beef jerky I accidentally left in my backpack for 9 months after our last Disneyland trip? It does. But that difficulty, much like that petrified Disney meat, gives you a lot to chew on. There is so much satisfaction in winning Slay the Spire because to win you have to combine strategy with more than a pinch of luck, and yet that luck never feels like a gamebreaker. It's part and parcel for a deckbuilder. Will the gods of card draws be good to you on this turn? Will this shuffling of the deck be as good as the shuffling dancers from the TV show Detroiters? Or will it be as bad a shuffle as Tim Duncan taking five steps yet not getting called for a travel?

Slay the Spire Summary: if you like deckbuilders, this is a must buy.

Now, does my opinion mean anything? Not really. This is a blog with 1 follower (me). But I will say I've gone through other deckbuilders (some on Switch which I'll list below, other in physical format that only get name dropped today) and so it is with at least some experience that I broadcast my claim.

I compare this game to Wildfrost, another deckbuilder on Switch that is good, but never reaches the heights of StS. It has charm falling off it like my sister-in-law's dandruff, evidenced in it's cutesty cartoony characters, the possibly stolen from Frozen art style, the pet companions, and an actual story where your comrades can get injured and die, and an "oh-no!!" twist where after you beat the game your best cards are turned evil and become the final boss you have to face in the subsequent game.

Wildfrost is different enough in its core gameplay from StS to merit it's own place in a collection. It's a deckbuilder but it's less about finding the perfect card combos and perfecting your deck than it is powering up your main characters over time. I own both games and enjoyed both. But only one kept me up over Christmas Break 2023 playing until 2 AM.

Wildfrost Summary: Buy if on a deal, or if you've spent 300 hours on StS.

And then there's Balatro, the current smokeshow of the deckbuilder genre. Let's get right to the point and say I've saved the worst for last. Balatro is a deckbuilder where you play poker hands and this game is trash. Balatro's most impressive feat is that it's the only time I've ever played a Royal Flush and felt disappointed. How is that possible? Because I had pimped out the points I would earn from playing a two pair so much that sending forth two sixes and three nonsense cards was better than sending out a royal flush. That feels about as fun tickling your opponents armpit instead of dropping a People's Elbow on them simply because the tickle is somehow more powerful. 

That's not the only thing that sucks about Balatro, but I'm out of time. 

Summary: Do not buy. Balatro is poo.